Degrees of Freedom
by Zephyra
Summary: Joey Lucas' rhetoric becomes reality.


Title: 99 Degrees of Freedom  
Author: Zephyra  
Genre: Drama/Romance  
Summary: Joey Lucas' rhetoric becomes reality.  
Spoilers: The War at Home  
  
  
Joey Lucas: "If you polled a hundred Donnas and asked them if they think we should go out, you'd get a high positive response. But the poll wouldn't tell you it's because she likes you and she knows it's beginning to show and she needs to cover herself with misdirection."  
Josh: "Believe me when I tell you, that's not true."  
  
  
I had a dream last night.  
  
In my dream, I searched through the multiverse, the infinite number of universes. I was floating above them all, searching. I was looking for one hundred universes that were close enough to mine to be statistically significant. I was looking for one hundred Donnas.  
  
It was difficult enough to find one hundred universes where there was life on Earth, let alone one hundred in which there existed one Donnatella Moss. And then, of course, I had to make sure that in each universe, she was working for me.  
  
I was careful to avoid my own universe.  
  
Finally, I found the one hundred. With one deft movement, I plucked each Donna away from her own world and placed her in a row with all her doppelgangers. When I was finished, I had one hundred Donnas lined up between the stars. They were silent, which unnerved me more than I would have thought.  
  
I cleared my throat. "I suppose you're wondering why you're all here."  
  
In an instant, they began to speak.  
  
"What are we doing here?"  
  
"Where are we?"  
  
"Joshua Lyman, explain yourself this instant!"  
  
I waited for the hundred protests to die down, then spoke. "I need your help. I need you all to just answer one question for me, and then I'll return you all."  
  
"What's the question?" they chorused.  
  
"What are your romantic feelings for Josh Lyman, if such feelings exist, on a scale of one to ten, one being 'nonexistent' and ten being 'desire for marriage'?" I said, as seriously as I could.  
  
All one hundred Donnas stared at me.  
  
"I'll come to each of you, and you can give me your number. Don't worry about offending me please; I need hard data."  
  
So I went to each of them, and each shakily said a number. In a few minutes, I had polled one hundred Donnas. I swiftly returned each to her own universe. Then I sat down to assess the data.  
  
I whipped out a graphing calculator and entered the data. It spat out the mean (7.6), median (7), and the standard deviation (1.1). I realized then that Joey Lucas was right; Donna did have feelings for me, and I couldn't deny that I felt the same way.  
  
But it was possible that my data were flawed, I reminded myself. I decided to use a t-table to find my 95% confidence interval. "Let's see," I mused aloud, desperately trying to recall my two semesters of statistics, "x-bar is 7.6, s is 1.1. Well, n is 100, so I have 99 degrees of freedom. So the 95% confidence interval is 7.6 plus or minus 1.99 times 1.1 divided by 10. That's . . . 7.38 to 7.82."  
  
I stared at the screen of my calculator, then hit CLEAR. The situation couldn't be any more lucid.  
  
I heard Joey Lucas' voice (somehow, her diction was perfect -- it was a dream, after all) echo in my head: "If you polled a hundred Donnas . . . ."  
  
But then I heard, louder and gentler, "Josh? What are you doing?"  
  
"Donna?" I heard her voice, but she was nowhere to be seen. Her voice surrounded me, enveloped me. "I'm . . . doing math."  
  
"Why?"  
  
"To see . . . to see how you feel."  
  
I heard her laugh, and my heart skipped a beat. "Joshua. Don't you already know? And if you don't, why don't you just ask?"  
  
Then, like a plug being yanked from a socket, the dream ended and I woke up, breathing quickly and heavily.  
  
I was sure then: she cares about me in a way that I had only hoped she did. And I am in love with her.  
  
It is the next morning. I awake early, and the sun has not yet risen. I take in a long breath of air, then exhale slowly. Today. Today I will test all ninety-nine degrees of freedom I have with Donnatella Moss.  
  
I climb out of my one bed in my one universe, and begin to prepare for the day. I can't remember the last time I was this happy. 


End file.
